The game is in the deep subburbs on a Monday night. Down 3 with one second left and your team doesn't even have the ball.

If you have kids, you gotta hurry up and get em out to the mini van.

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I never ever ever leave a game early. I don't care if my team is down 15 with one minute remaining. I don't get to see the games that often, and I want to see every play...win or lose.

I don't even go to the refreshment stand during play. I learned my lesson not to do that as a kid when I missed a Rusty Staub three run homer to put the Tigers in the lead. I missed it for a stinking Ball Park frank.

the day started off interestingly, as my buddy decided to stay late at work and give his ticket to my other buddy, who enjoys going to events and things but doesn't follow the pistons all that much. whenever we sell tickets or don't go together, something happens at the game that makes us wish we were there. well we were certainly treated to that tonight.

first of all, the best deal at the palace is at buffalo wild wings. for $8 you get 10 boneless wings and 3 sauces in a nice carrying bin. add a pop for $3.50 and you've just fed yourself for a modest price - plus you often get more than 10 pieces (little extras thrown in). we got in our seats right in time for the national anthem. for those of you who don't know, right after the dramatic music the fire goes up and you hear a very loud BANG, and it's always fun to watch people get the poop scared out of them who don't know it's coming. my buddy about peed his pants haha. by the way, AI got so many cheers from the crowd that my buddy asked if opposing teams always had so many fans in our section. they were all pistons fans, they just happen to love AI.

the crowd was pretty full and loud to start the game, and the pistons fed off that with superior ball movement and scoring their first 10 points in the paint, playing solid defense and cruising to an early lead. it was about this time that a gorgeous red/blonde-haired chick came up the steps, and she had some work done to her chest area and it was completely fantastic. she came up and down the steps a few more times and i missed whatever was happening on the court at the time.

...hold on, still thinking about that one...

okay. so anyway, i know some of you have been touting flip murray on D, and yeah he got some nice steals in this game, but he single-handedly caused us to lose our lead in the 2nd quarter. he had a string of possessions where he didn't secure a pass, turned it over on a pass, lost a pass out of bounds, and got it stolen while trying to drive the lane. on the other end, he had no idea how to fight through screens and left J.R. Smith wide-open for consecutive baskets. after 2 straight dunks by denver and flip's god-awful play, the crowd booed quite loudly. hey, at least they were into the game!

maxiell had a spectacular first quarter when he was actually on the floor. he caused a lot of shots to be changed and got a sick block on anthony. he had a little bit of trouble with nene but wasn't covering him all that much. he definitely didn't let anthony out-muscle him and was a good player to stick on him defensively. tayshaun's fall was very scary, and all i could think was 'that alley-oop was SO not necessary with our huge lead' and 'how long could tay be out for?? the playoffs aren't far away!!' and i got nervous thinking our run at the title was finished.

it was frustrating watching that lead slip away. my buddy was more interested in the atmosphere than the game itself - he had trouble following plays and knowing when something good happened, etc. he had a lot of questions about the pistons that here we might take for granted, but it was cool that he was interested and asking. when the 3rd quarter was starting he was like 'where is everyone?' and i mentioned they hadn't gotten back from having their drinks yet, and later on he asked if they considered it a sellout and then wondered why when i said yes.

4th quarter, about 4-5 minutes left and us down by 5, he turned and asked if we were going to win, and i confidently said yes. i also mentioned that playoff games are 100x better and more fun, but little did i know what was going to happen down the stretch...

this was the one of the only games that felt like a playoff game. they even had the 'shooting the rock' finals between 2 contestants who had beaten everyone else throughout the year, the winner getting a trip to fly with the pistons to toronto on round ball one. you had to shoot a layup on each side of the basket, short jumper, free throw, and 3-pointer. highest score wins. both the red and blue players started off strong and tied at 4-4, so there was sudden death. first to make a free-throw wins. first sudden death, they both make their first shot, thinking they had won, then looking back at each other and realizing they had to go again. second sudden death, they both miss the first shot, red makes the second, but blue had just gotten the ball in the air and makes it too!! another sudden death!! blue had a little help because red had to chase his own ball, and blue got it passed back to him from a ball boy. at this point the crowd really gets invested into the outcome, and finally blue (i think) wins in the 3rd sudden death on his first shot. clutch.

down the stretch...well first what happened was rasheed played TERRIBLE, LAZY defense. i know he hit that shot and huge 3 in overtime, but before that it was the matador defense, compounded by AI consistently blowing by flip and then dishing baseline for an easy score. as chauncey missed a free throw late and then didn't get a bailout call, i thought we were finished. at least the crowd was on its feet for the last minute and cheering loudly for the last 3-4, making my voice hoarse like it was the playoffs. but i started thinking about our terrible home record, how i couldn't believe we lost, how we let the lead slip away, and i looked at that girl again walking up the steps to leave. ahhh how i love summer and jacket-less ladies. before the last play i thought to myself, our only chance is a steal and heave down the court, and imagined tay doing it. keep in mind that as they were inbounding the ball, fans were pouring out of the stands (and you can see it on the video that i'm in). the pass is inbounded and i see the ball tip and sheed grab it, and i can't explain it but i think everyone in the arena knew it was going in. it was really weird - everyone was holding their breath and it seemed like the ball was in the air for an hour, waiting to see if it had any prayer of going in. as soon as it dropped everyone went NUTS, i started jumping up and down like a little girl and belting out a high-pitched laugh/scream/wooooo that would've been pretty embarassing in a normal everyday situation. the whole overtime people didn't even go back to their seats, they all just stayed in the aisles/exits, standing up and watching us pull out the victory. we immediately called my friend to poke fun that he gave up his ticket, sat and enjoyed the moment, and left.

so in short, flip had a horrible 2nd quarter stretch (if his flu was really bad then i'll give him a pass for tonight, but i'm seeing him slip back into some bad tendencies and bet he'll play himself out of the playoff rotation), sheed had a horrible 4th quarter stretch, but we still beat a hot denver team without c-webb and rip. by the way, it was a bad idea to have 5 bench guys together in the 2nd quarter as well. it was okay for a bit, but eventually it caught up to us.

I never ever ever leave a game early. I don't care if my team is down 15 with one minute remaining. I don't get to see the games that often, and I want to see every play...win or lose.

I don't even go to the refreshment stand during play. I learned my lesson not to do that as a kid when I missed a Rusty Staub three run homer to put the Tigers in the lead. I missed it for a stinking Ball Park frank.

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I never leave early either. I have been to four NBA games this season and the ushers have had to throw me out each time as I was still hangin around wanting help with the clean up .....

It's almost the end of the regular season and Flip and his assistants has yet to recognize that the bench does not play well as a unit. CB, Sheed and Tay sits, the lead of 15 down to 3. Flip Jr may be a starter for the game but he is still part of the bench. Bench guys like Flip Jr, Delf and JMax has to play with the starters, period. It has been proven over and over again in the past few games.

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Pretty harsh judgement considering neither Hunter nor Murray is a point guard. And both had the flu on top of that. There is nothing wrong with using five bench players at the same time Just has to be the right ones. I bet a unit of Blalock who is a real point guard, Delflino, Amir Johnson, Jason Maxiell, and Dale Davis would do wonders as a unit. Dyess would be playing more with the starting unit, and taking some of Dale's minutes with the subs too.

Blalock-
Roland Rating is -6.9 (horrific)
Net on court off court is -10.7 (worst on the team by a mile)
Production is -5.4 (worst on team, except for Dupree's GT)

But he does average 7 points in the D-League!!! Wow.

Maybe he has potential or something, but it sure doesn't show up in any stat. If he's a great defender, it is more than cancelled out by his inability to score (see +/- stats).

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Stats can by very misleading, espesially in very short minutes like Blalock has played so far. Look a little closer. You throw out one bad game, and Blalock is otherwise even for the season in plus minus. Note, that one bad game was a bad game statistically for him, in the plus minus column, not a bad game for him personally. I know Murray has done better of late, but him at point overall has meant bad play by the team. Ditto for Hunter. The fact is, that the best we did this season so far for a backup point is the games Blalock played. (Although again, Flip Murray has had some good results as of the past couple of weeks, even though his defense has been lacking again the past 2 games.)